Greg Poulgrain – The Indonesian military is planning to increase troop numbers in restive Papua province by an additional 15,000 personnel from Kostrad, the Strategic Reserve Command.

Kostrad Commander Lieutenant-General Hadi Waluyo announced the increase last Wednesday.

The extra division to be sent to Papua represents almost a 50 per cent increase in troop numbers, taking the number of security force personnel in Indonesia's most easterly province to more than 50,000.

Separatists have been active in the region since Indonesia took control in 1963, but Lt-Gen Hadi explained: "The decision to expand was based on considerations about the direction of threats to Indonesia's defence."

The border between Indonesian Papua and Papua New Guinea was specifically mentioned, but the only cross-border incursions in recent years have been by Indonesian troops into PNG territory.

There is already a strong Indonesian troop presence around Oksibil in the central highland region, where 30,000 Papuans fled east across the border into PNG in the mid-1980s. Remote but army-controlled, this region now has 10,000 non-Papuans mining alluvial gold which is flown out by helicopter to Jayapura and then sent to Jakarta.

As well, in the southern reaches along the PNG border, a major oil and gas deposit reportedly was discovered last month.

The increase in troop numbers flies in the face of the US State Department's report on Indonesian human rights infringments in 2004. Published last month, the report stated: "Security force members murdered, tortured, raped, beat and arbitrarily detained civilians and members of separatist movements... in Aceh and Papua."

The planned increase of Indonesian troops in Papua comes less than a month after the resumption of US-Indonesian military ties.